Mistaken Identity
by ToTheBeatofMyOwnDrummer
Summary: Isaac Mendez is dead. Audrey Hanson is outraged. One-shot -Me no own.-


Mistaken Identity

Hello! Sorry I haven't updated in a while. I haven't given up on 'Sins of the Fathers' but I am terribly writers blocked at the moment, so while I will eventually finish it, I plan on rewriting it and re-submitting it at a later date, so check back and sorry for any inconvienience!

Playlist- Wasteland (10 years), Evil Angel (Breaking Benjamin), I'm a Bitch (Meredith Brooks), Angel of Darkness (Alex C.)

* * *

Walking into the studio, at first she couldn't see why her chief had felt the need to call her out here, to this particular crime scene, but she knew that she wouldn't have done so if it didn't have something to do with Sylar.

Idly she glanced at the paintings as she walked by them on her way to where the body lay surrounded by the tense, twitchy forms of New York's finest. The paintings were good, although in no particular order, and most of them show scenes she never would've picked as subjects of art.

One in particular caught her eye; it showed the face of an obviously frightened teenage girl, blue eyes wide open, arm outstretched in desperate supplication, blonde hair whipping around her head like a halo. She looked a bit like the girl she and Officer Parkman had met in Texas: Claire Bennet, was it?

Shaking her head to clear it of unwanted thoughts, specifically those of Matt, and her short-lived partnership with the supposed mind-reader, she weaved her way to the center of the bustling hive of activity, side-stepping the pool of long-dried blood with the ease of long practice, she approached the body warily, already knowing what she would see.

She was not to be disappointed.

The man may have been ruggedly attractive in life, all brown eyes and scruffy beard, but death had stolen the color from his skin and the life from his blank, staring eyes. Mouth tightening, she studiously avoided looking at the gaping cavity where the man's brain had previously been, instead turning her narrowed blue gaze on an Officer standing a little to her right, pretending to be taking notes while he was obviously waiting for her to acknowledge him so he could relay his information and leave the apartment as soon as possible.

Sighing, Audrey took pity on the rookie cop who looked about ten seconds away from tossing his cookies. Going over to him warily incase he couldn't take it and upchucked all over her shoes and her crime scene, she demanded, not unkindly, "Wha'do we got?"

Turning grateful brown eyes on her, the kid gave her his unnecessarily full attention, a way of conveying his respect of her rank as well as using it as an excuse to look away from the decapitated body splayed prone on the floor. "The lease for the apartment is under the name Simone Deveaux, whose father owned the building. She was reported as missing two weeks ago. The building manager says that all though it was rented in her name, it was her 'no-good starving-artist bum of a crack-head boyfriend' who actually lived here." The kid, whose badge identified him as Officer Micheals, said all of this in a rush, eager to finish so he could leave.

Since the young man was paling by the second, Detective Hanson asked him one last question, deciding she would just read the full report later, since she already knew what it would say; after all she knew how he felt. In fact, she was slightly impressed he had managed to hold down his lunch this long. God knows she hadn't when she'd first been assigned to the 'Sylar' case. "That'll be all Micheals, just one more thing: did they find any ID on the body?"

Swallowing hard, he flipped to the appropriate page in his notes, looking down he nodded before turning his eyes back to her's. "Yes, they found a wallet in his pocket, no money, although if he was a drug-addict that may be the cause and we've found nothing else that points to robbery; his license identifies him as an 'Isaac Mendez', age 28."

Taking her stunned silence as permission to beat a hasty retreat, he did just that, fairly sprinting for the door of the studio.

Reeling, Detective Hanson barely managed to keep her legs underneath her, sheer force of will keeping her body from trembling with the shock she felt, the shock that was swiftly and violently twisting into rage.

'_This man is a very dangerous, wanted criminal. You may have just saved quite a few lives Mr.-?'_

'_Mendez. Isaac Mendez'_

Whirling around, she shoved her way unapologetically through the crush of techs hunting non-existent evidence, past the coroner coming to take away the mutilated shell of what used to be Isaac Mendez, the _real_ Isaac Mendez.

The man on the floor was the real one, the real Isaac.

The man on the floor, who was most definitely Hispanic.

The man on the floor, who was most definitely NOT the man who had given her his name on the day that they had recaptured Ted Sprague.

Frantically her mind spun, replaying the conversation in her mind, remembering every detail. Dark hair, dark eyes, tall, pale, dressed all in black, smug smirk in place, as if he'd known something she hadn't, as if he'd been_ laughing_ at her.

And he had been laughing. Because he did know something she hadn't. Because he'd known _everything_, and Audrey had known nothing.

As the mist in her mind focused on this crystal clear realization, the realization that that man was the one she had been searching for; the one she'd been chasing across state boarders, chasing far out of her jurisdiction, that that man had been him, had been _Sylar_, right in front of her, laughing at her stupidity, she detachedly noticed that she was standing in front of yet another painting.

Unlike the others this one was huge, easily seven feet across, and it had been painted fully from side-to-side and top-to-bottom; painted with long, soft brush strokes, painted with careful consideration to every detail, completely out of place among the other canvases which were all around five-by-five rectangles, and had all been painted as if by a man possessed, with short, harsh movements. In other words, painted by two different people.

It depicted what appeared to be a stand-off between two men. They faced off at a distance of about ten feet in front of a bright-red sculpture she vaguely identified as Kirby Plaza. The two figures were familiar to her. The one on the right she couldn't clearly recall as she took in his slightly startled expression, the way he seemed to be cringing back from the figure on her left who was advancing on him, a focused, hungry look on his face.

This one she recognized.

She knew she would never forget his face for the rest of her life; just the same as she knew she would never be able to describe it to any sketch artist who asked her. The face of a killer.

Sylar.

Whoever had painted this had had all the time in the world, the man who had painted all the others hadn't had any time left at all. The person who had painted this had painted it after the real artist's death, had stood there mixing paints and cleaning brushes not six feet away from his latest victim as he bled out on the floor.

Audrey watched with glazed eyes as two perfectly circular holes tore through the thin, taunt canvas; one completely obliterated the man on the left's head, while the other tore a hold directing over where his heart would have been. Slowly, as if thinking through molasses, she wondered what could have happened to cause such a thing.

Wondered when exactly she had taken out her gun.

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